Martínez wary of Canada ahead of World Cup clash

The two nations will meet at Al Rayyan in Qatar, in a Group F encounter, and Martinez believes a team that beat the USA and Mexico to the top of the Concacaf group deserves respect. 

“When you finish top of the group ahead of the national teams like (the) USA and Mexico that means there's a real substance, there's a lot of confidence that you arrive with into a World Cup,” he said. 

We know how difficult it is to get to the World Cup, and in Canadian terms is only a second time, first time was in '86, so straight away you know this generation has something special,”

Second-ranked Belgium are among the favourites in the tournament, but there’s the pressure of game time for captain Eden Hazard, who has struggled at Real Madrid. Martínez, one of the longest-serving coaches in this World Cup, however, is standing by Hazard. 

"The last two years (have) been a tough situation, in terms of the playing minutes, but he's here with the Belgium national team, it’s a completely different environment,” he added.

“He's our captain, he's someone that we know really really well, we are a better team when Eden Hazard is in our dressing room, that's for sure”, said Martínez, serving in his sixth year with the Belgians.

Referees have been in the spotlight over the past few days after FIFA ordered them to add time lost during matches. 14 minutes were added at the end of Argentina’s shocking 2-1 loss to Saudi Arabia, while England and Iran went into the 15th minute of stoppage time in the first half Monday and the referee added almost 14 minutes in the second half before England ran out 6-2 victors.

Martinez believes the application of added time may need more discussion. 

"I think there's a question: should we try to find a different way? Should we do a stopwatch, in the last 20 minutes instead of going and allowing these disparities between game and game from going 120 minutes, to 95 minutes?”

I think is a big disparity. Maybe we need to find a common ground and learn from what's happening in the World Cup to maybe make the game more efficient and fairer from that point of view. 

All we want to see is teams playing football,” he added.

“We want to see teams competing with each other, you want to see teams that got the time to do that,”

“I think in the past we've been in situations where it was difficult to get the game going in the last 20 minutes, you're running the clock down, that's not what football should be about, and that's not what fans want to watch”, he said. 

The game between Belgium and Canada will be shown live on SABC 1 and also broadcast on all SABC radio stations.